The Pentagon is scheduled on Friday to temporary Elon Musk on the U.S. navy’s plan for any struggle which may get away with China, two U.S. officers stated on Thursday.
One other official stated the briefing will likely be China centered, with out offering extra particulars. A fourth official confirmed Mr. Musk was to be on the Pentagon on Friday, however provided no particulars.
Offering Mr. Musk entry to among the nation’s most carefully guarded navy secrets and techniques could be a dramatic enlargement of his already intensive function as an adviser to President Trump and chief of his effort to slash spending and purge the federal government of individuals and insurance policies they oppose.
It could additionally deliver into sharp aid the questions on Mr. Musk’s conflicts of curiosity as he ranges extensively throughout the federal paperwork whereas persevering with to run companies which might be main authorities contractors. On this case, Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief govt of each SpaceX and Tesla, is a number one provider to the Pentagon and has intensive monetary pursuits in China.
Pentagon struggle plans, recognized in navy jargon as O-plans or operational plans, are among the many navy’s most carefully guarded secrets and techniques. If a overseas nation was to find out how america deliberate to combat a struggle towards them, it may reinforce its defenses and handle its weaknesses, making the plans far much less prone to succeed.
The highest-secret briefing for the China struggle plan has about 20 to 30 slides that lay out how america would combat such a battle. It covers the plan starting with the indications and warning of a menace from China to varied choices on what Chinese language targets to hit, over what time interval, that might be offered to Mr. Trump for selections, in keeping with officers with data of the plan.
A White Home spokesman didn’t reply to an e mail searching for remark concerning the function of the go to, the way it happened, whether or not Mr. Trump was conscious of it, and whether or not the go to raises questions of conflicts of curiosity. The White Home has not stated whether or not Mr. Trump signed a conflicts of curiosity waiver for Mr. Musk. A Protection Division spokesman didn’t reply to an identical e mail.
The assembly displays the extraordinary twin function performed by Mr. Musk, who’s each the world’s wealthiest man and has been given broad authority by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Musk has a safety clearance, and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth can decide who has a have to know concerning the plan. The selection of sharing a lot of technical particulars with Mr. Musk, nevertheless, is one other matter.
Mr. Hegseth; Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the performing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers; and Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the pinnacle of the navy’s Indo-Pacific Command, are set to current Mr. Musk with particulars on the U.S. plan to counter China within the occasion of navy battle between the 2 nations, the officers stated.
Operational plans for main contingencies, like a struggle with China, are extraordinarily tough for individuals with out intensive navy planning to grasp. The technical nature is why presidents are usually offered with the broad contours of a plan, fairly than the precise particulars of a paperwork. What number of particulars Mr. Musk will need or want to listen to is unclear.
Mr. Hegseth acquired a part of the China struggle plan briefing final week and one other half on Wednesday, in keeping with officers accustomed to the plan.
It was unclear what the impetus was for offering Mr. Musk such a delicate briefing. He’s not within the navy chain of command, neither is he an official adviser to Mr. Trump on navy issues involving China.
However there’s a potential motive Mr. Musk would possibly have to know concerning the struggle plan. If Mr. Musk and his staff of price cutters from the Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, wish to trim the Pentagon funds in a accountable approach, they might have to know what weapons techniques the Pentagon plans to make use of in a combat with China.
Take, for instance, plane carriers. Chopping again on future plane carriers would save billions of {dollars}, cash that may very well be spent on drones or different weaponry. But when the U.S. struggle technique depends on utilizing plane carriers in modern ways in which would shock China, mothballing present ships or stopping manufacturing on future ships may cripple that plan.
Planning for a struggle with China has dominated Pentagon pondering for many years, properly earlier than a potential confrontation with Beijing turned extra standard knowledge on Capitol Hill. The USA has constructed its Air Forces, Navy and Area Forces — and much more just lately its Marines and Military forces — with a potential combat towards China in thoughts.
Critics have stated the navy has invested an excessive amount of in large costly techniques like fighter jets or plane carriers and too little in midrange drones and coastal defenses. However for Mr. Musk to guage how you can reorient Pentagon spending, he would wish to know what the navy intends to make use of and for what function.
Mr. Musk has already known as for the Pentagon to cease shopping for sure high-priced objects like F-35 fighter jets, manufactured by one in every of his space-launch opponents, Lockheed Martin, in a program that prices the Pentagon greater than $12 billion a 12 months.
But Mr. Musk’s intensive enterprise pursuits make his entry to strategic secrets and techniques about China a major problem within the view of ethics specialists. Officers have stated revisions to the struggle plans towards China have centered on upgrading the plans for defending towards area warfare. China has developed a collection of weapons that may assault U.S. satellites.
Mr. Musk’s constellations of low-earth orbit Starlink satellites, which offer broadband knowledge and communications companies from area, are thought of extra resilient than conventional satellites. However he may have an curiosity in studying about whether or not or not america may defend his satellites in a struggle with China.
Collaborating in a labeled briefing on the China menace with among the most senior Pentagon and U.S. navy officers could be a tremendously useful alternative for any protection contractor searching for to promote companies to the navy.
Mr. Musk may acquire perception into new instruments that the Pentagon would possibly want and that SpaceX, the place he stays the chief govt, may promote.
Contractors engaged on related Pentagon initiatives typically do have entry to sure restricted struggle planning paperwork, however solely as soon as struggle plans are authorized, stated Todd Harrison, a senior fellow on the American Enterprise Institute, the place he focuses on protection technique. Particular person executives not often if ever get unique entry to high Pentagon officers for a briefing like this, Mr. Harrison stated.
“Musk at a war-planning briefing?” he stated. “Giving the CEO of 1 protection firm distinctive entry looks like this may very well be grounds for a contract protest and is an actual battle of curiosity.”
Mr. Musk’s SpaceX is already being paid billions of {dollars} by the Pentagon and federal spy companies to assist america construct new navy satellite tv for pc networks to attempt to confront rising navy threats from China. SpaceX launches most of those navy satellites for the Pentagon on its Falcon 9 rockets, which take off from launchpads SpaceX has arrange at navy bases in Florida and California.
The corporate individually has been paid tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} by the Pentagon that now depends closely on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc communications community for navy personnel to transmit knowledge worldwide.
In 2024, SpaceX was granted about $1.6 billion in Air Power contracts. That doesn’t embody labeled spending with SpaceX by the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace, which has employed the corporate to construct it a brand new constellation of low-earth orbit satellites to spy on China, Russia and different threats.
Mr. Trump has already proposed that america construct a brand new system the navy is asking Golden Dome, a space-based missile protection system that remembers what President Ronald Reagan tried to ship. (The so-called Star Wars system Mr. Reagan had in thoughts was by no means absolutely developed.)
Perceived missile threats from China — be it nuclear weapons or hypersonic missiles or cruise missiles — are a significant component that led Mr. Trump to signal an govt order just lately instructing the Pentagon to begin work on Golden Dome.
Even beginning to plan and construct the primary parts of the system will price tens of billions of {dollars}, in keeping with Pentagon officers, and almost definitely create giant enterprise alternatives for SpaceX, which already supplies rocket launches, satellite tv for pc constructions, and space-based knowledge communications techniques, all of which will likely be required for Golden Dome.
Individually, Mr. Musk has been the main target of an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector common over questions on his compliance along with his top-secret safety clearance.
The investigations began final 12 months after some SpaceX workers complained to authorities companies that Mr. Musk and others at SpaceX weren’t correctly reporting contacts or conversations with overseas leaders.
Air Power officers, earlier than the top of the Biden administration, began their very own assessment, after Senate Democrats requested questions about Mr. Musk and asserted that he was not complying with safety clearance necessities.
The Air Power, in reality, had denied a request by Mr. Musk for a fair larger stage of safety clearance, often called Particular Entry Program, which is reserved for terribly delicate labeled packages, citing potential safety dangers related to the billionaire.
In truth, SpaceX has change into so useful to the Pentagon that the Chinese language authorities has stated it considers the corporate to be an extension of the U.S. navy.
“Starlink Militarization and Its Impression on International Strategic Stability” was the headline of 1 publication launched final 12 months from China’s Nationwide College of Protection Expertise, in keeping with a translation of the paper ready by the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research.
Mr. Musk and Tesla, an electrical car firm he controls, are closely reliant on China, which homes one of many auto maker’s flagship manufacturing unit in Shanghai. Unveiled in 2019, the state-of-the-art facility was constructed with particular permission from the Chinese language authorities, and now accounts for greater than half of Tesla’s world deliveries. Final 12 months, the corporate stated in monetary filings that it had a $2.8 billion mortgage settlement with lenders in China for manufacturing expenditures.
In public, Mr. Musk has averted criticizing Beijing and signaled his willingness to work with the Chinese language Communist Occasion. In 2022, he wrote a column for the journal of the Our on-line world Administration of China, the nation’s censorship company, trumpeting his firms and their missions of enhancing humanity.
That very same 12 months, the billionaire informed the Monetary Occasions that China must be given some management over Taiwan by making a “particular administrative zone for Taiwan that’s fairly palatable,” an assertion that angered politicians of the unbiased island. In that very same interview, he additionally famous that he gave Beijing assurances that he wouldn’t promote Starlink in China.
The next 12 months at a tech convention, Mr. Musk known as the democratic island “an integral a part of China that’s arbitrarily not a part of China,” and in contrast the Taiwan-China state of affairs to Hawaii and america.
On X, the social platform he owns, Mr. Musk has lengthy used his account to reward China. He has stated the nation is “by far” the world chief in electrical automobiles and solar energy, and has counseled its area program for being “way more superior than individuals understand.” He has inspired extra individuals to go to the nation, and posited overtly about an “inevitable” Russia-China alliance.
Aaron Kessler contributed reporting.
